Thread: Has the Bigspendur met his match?

Well I knew it would eventually happen.

So I got this Rogers Frameback 6/8s on Eboy and the edge was basically gone on it as well as the fact it has a minor warp to the blade. So I figured it would be a challenge to get it back into shave ready condition again. So after about 2 weeks and many hours on the hone what has happened? Well under the scope it looks good and has a beautiful bevel on it but doesn't shave worth a damn. I've used every technique I can think of, all kinds of pyramids, the Norton 4K/8K, blue belgian, Yellow Coticule, 12K Kitayama even brought out the reserve troops, my barbers hones which I never use. I've used circular honing and rocking motions and back and forth honing x honing and honing with pressure and without.

So at this point unless someone has some brilliante ideas its time for the Atomic Bomb of honing. Against all usual honing lore and advice the next proceedure will be my lansky Diamond System Hone. I will see if some careful and slow honing with the extra fine and fine hones can do what all the other hones couldn't do. What do you all think? Good idea or bad?

since it sounds like you want to cut a whole new bevel and eliminate the problematic old one and the thing isn't worth much to you the way it is, I'd say go for it and good luck! Of course I'v only got one ebay honing under my belt so I am about the furthest thing from an expert that might actually have an opinion out there.

This is easy... it's the razor's fault. Throw the dad gum thing away. Sometimes we just have to accept that we get a lemon once in a while. Don't waste another dollar's worth of surface of one of those good stones on it.

I had the same problem myself recently, only to discover the spine was uneven. You might check that. Might be bent or wider on one side than the other. . .

I considered bomb honing too, but it wasn't my razor and I didn't want to turn it into a 3/8.

Maybe it's just a crappy razor? Even the best maker could put out a dud.

"Never give up, never give up, never ever ever give up." Winston Churchill

No I'm not going to give up. I think its a quality razor just very old and worn. Maybe I'm just p--ssing in the wind on this one but I will experiment with my lansky Diamond Hones. If it works out maybe I will have discovered a whole new honing practice. Maybe I'll be famous. Stay tuned later this coming week.

Try using a narrow hone, about 1.25 or 1.5 inch wide.

Well, I spent the better part of the day on this thing. First I experimented with the lansky hone which is about an inch wide starting with 125 mesh diamond (you know the kind that with one pass half your edge is gone) and moved up gradually to 600 mesh diamond and then some circular honing on the blue belgian and then on up to the coticule. So after all that guess what? It still wont even shave arm hairs. Actually I think I figured out what the problem is. I don't know why I didn't see it before but while I had it suspended on the lansky vise and the light hit it just right I noticed that not only is the edge warped but its warped in a multiple S configuration. I've never seen that in a razor before and I can't even figure out how it happened. I can't believe people have been shaving with this thing for well over a hundred years like this. The warp isn't extreme-very slight actually but its there.

So now I can say this thing has whipped me. I guess it will go into the bag with all the junk razors.

I've got an old engstrom frameback with that type of curve. I never had any luck with it.